Archive for 'Gaming in General'

Role playing a GPS-enabled sensor in the ARG hive mind I decided to join the Waze traffic map game on my new iPhone last week, after reading far too many stories moaning about how Apple should never have dropped Google Maps from the new version of iOS. The general tone of the Apple Map coverage [...]

10-12% drop in player concurrency since February – daily signups swoon There is no question Linden Lab CEO and Aston Villa fan Rod Humble knows his soccer. But Rod Humble seems to be taking a classic end-game page from the American football playbook – the Hail Mary pass – as he moves to market Second [...]

I have been taking a break from Second Life lately by playing the MMO Allods Online. Its a free to play MMO similar to World of Warcraft developed by Russians. Seeing how their players respond to a situation is very telling on how MMO’s and virtual worlds might be paid for in the future. World [...]

by Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia Much has been written about whether SL is a game or something else. Most people I know in game call SL a “virtual world.” Most professors I know in real life call it a “serious game,” although I do not think the eggheads are deliberately implying that SL is serious as opposed [...]

Over at at Henry Jenkins blog and MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media site, part one of Herald founder Urizenus Sklar’s think piece Watching the Watchers: Power and Politics in Second Life traces the evolution of both the online world griefing phenomena and the virtual security operations that have emerged to counter griefers. Posting the [...]

The Korean couple who’s child starved to death while they played marathon sessions of an online 3-D game plead guilty to negligent homicide Friday and apparently blamed an unfortunate combination of missing owners’ manuals for the child and Internet gaming addiction. CNN reports that the South Korean couple engaged in 10 hour overnight gameplay sessions [...]

by Idoru Wellman, staff writer The Netflix “Find Your Voice film competition” is a great new game where everyone can participate by forming gangs to vote for the independent film maker that best represents their community and interests. Consider this a more positive version of the gang abuse report used in Second Life to get [...]

The best way to get into it is to go where it isn't and wait for it to come – Richard Bartle by Idoru Wellman, staff writer [Richard Bartle recently visited Metaplace, and although the most of the Herald staff were unable to attend, one of Urizenus Sklar's contacts provided this transcript. Cuppycake (Metaplace community [...]

Facebook group to petition for avatar identities on Facebook by Pixeleen Mistral, News Idoru A sadness tinged with arousal – Facebook is already an MMORPG The grand tradition of self-referential emergent behavior in social software continues as Facebook users have formed a group to petition the Facebook gods to allow avatar and pseudonym personalities to [...]

A Lesson for other MMOs?by Dr. Legion, staff reporter In this very interesting interviewon MMORPG, Petur Oskarrson talks about the EVE Online Council on Stellar Management (CSM) — a group of players elected to represent the players interests with the game company at face to face meetings in Iceland. Petur describes some of the changes [...]